


Rewind

by Achika



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Gen, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-12
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2018-02-08 11:33:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1939470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Achika/pseuds/Achika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nijimura wakes up two years in the past. The universe has to be messing with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rewind

Nijimura wakes up and he knows before he even opens his eyes that something has gone terribly, terribly wrong. 

The sounds –though familiar – are wrong. His sheets are wrong. He is pretty sure the bed is facing the wrong direction. 

So when he actually does open his eyes, he is surprised but not as surprised as probably warranted, to find himself in his old bedroom. Back in Japan. Where he had not been when he went to bed the previous night, which is not even in the same continent actually.

The pictures on his bedside table are old ones. Nijimura’s father teaching him how to shoot hoops. His little siblings climbing all over him.

The picture of him and Tatsuya from last summer at Venice Beach, faces smooshed together with their sunglasses on and pretending to be super cool, taken on Tatsuya’s phone, is nowhere to be seen.

So Nijimura does what all right thinking people would do when woken up confronted by the impossible – he goes back to sleep. 

He gets woken up by two large objects barreling into him, and opens his eyes again to see his younger siblings grinning at him. 

“Shuuzou! Wake up you lazy butt!” His sister says, exactly as Nijimura remembers her at 7 years old, including the missing tooth. 

“Papa says you’re gonna be late for school!” His brother says.

School could only mean one thing, if his siblings are as young as they are. If they’re really in Japan, which it’s looking increasingly likely that they are. 

“Yeah, okay, okay, just stop crushing me, will you? You two are heavy,” 

Nijimura gets dressed, and eats the breakfast his father’s made. 

His father is pale and gaunt, looking like he’d only recently come back from another round at the hospital, and sits down gratefully when Nijimura offers to serve the food. 

Nijimura had forgotten, almost, how bad his father’s health had gotten before they’d gone to America. He doesn’t much appreciate the reminder. 

He goes to school because he doesn’t actually know what else to do with himself. At this point, Nijimura is 100% sure he’s not dreaming, or hallucinating. He really has somehow wound up back in middle school. He’s just grateful to be wearing pants in this particular nightmare. 

He goes to the gym instinctively. If someone had asked him for directions to there from Teikou’s front door yesterday, he wouldn’t have been able to give them but it’s like each step inside the building is reawakening things he’d thought long forgotten. 

Midorima is there getting in some three pointer practice to calm himself for the school day, using the act of shooting repetitively as meditation. 

When he sees Nijimura, he stops, lowering the ball before taking the shot. 

“I was actually hoping to catch you before classes started, Captain,” Midorima says, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I have something for you,” 

Midorima goes over to the bench and digs around in his messenger bag, before pulling out a box of band-aids. 

“It’s your lucky item today. I was listening to Oha Asa this morning and your fortune seemed…odd. So I thought you might want the extra luck,” 

Nijimura’s laughter is a short burst. Of course Oha Asa knows that he’s somehow been thrown back in time. Of course.

“Thanks. I think you’re right. I could use all the help I can get,” Nijimura says, and he can’t help but reach out and ruffle Midorima’s hair, just to see the too serious child look affronted and pleased at the same time. 

God, Midorima is young. 

They’re _all_ young, and it makes Nijimura feel a lot older than he is – physically and chronologically.

Nijimura makes it through half the day before he has to ditch. He’s had to pull Aomine off the roof to go to class and pull Haizaki out of a fight. Akashi follows him around like a duckling, and that’s adorable for a little while but really disconcerting when Nijimura is still trying to figure out how he wound up back at Teikou in the first place. 

So Nijimura slips out through a back door in an empty hallway and hops the fence to freedom. He’s sure that Akashi and the others will try to reach him when it’s time for practice, but he can’t be bothered to care at the moment.

He wants to call Tatsuya, to try and talk it out, but Tatsuya right now doesn’t even know he exists so that would be weird. 

Nijimura wanders around, trying to think of any reason for sudden time travel that could be applied to his situation. Akashi texts him exactly once, one minute before basketball practice is supposed to start, wondering where he is. Nijimura just replies that he has something he needs to do, and knows that Akashi can handle running practice without him.

“Well, look who it is. Teikou’s own Captain Nijimura,” says a familiar voice. Nijimura looks up from his thoughts and sees glasses gleaming in the sunlight and a smile that’s far less reassuring than it looks. 

“Imayoshi. What, don’t you have a basketball team to be torturing?” Nijimura asks. 

He and Imayoshi Shouichi have never been close, but Nijimura can definitely respect a guy who can handle the bundle of knives that Hanamiya Makoto turned out to be without getting cut open. 

“I could say the same for you. Or does Teikou not believe in practice anymore?” Imayoshi asks innocently, sitting down at the opposite side of the café table. 

Nijimura shrugs, not really wanting to give Imayoshi any ammunition. 

“You know, it looks to me like you’ve got something on your mind. I’d be willing to lend an ear,” Imayoshi says. 

“The hell? We’re not _friends_ , Imayoshi,” Nijimura says incredulously.

“Well, no. No we’re not. Does that matter?” Imayoshi asks, innocently confused. 

Nijimura is suddenly reminded of why he’d always taken more pleasure than usual in beating Imayoshi’s team. 

Nijimura bares his teeth, giving Imayoshi a grin that isn’t very nice. 

“All right. This morning I woke up two years in the past and I have no idea what caused it. So if you’re secretly an expert on spontaneous time travel, feel free to share your thoughts,”

It feels good to say it out loud, even if he's just doing it so Imayoshi will leave him alone. Imayoshi doesn’t say anything for a long moment, just narrows his eyes at Nijimura like he is searching for something.

And then he gives a low whistle.

“Hooo boy, you really got yourself into a mess there, Nijimura,” he says, laughing. 

“Yeah, I know,” Nijimura says, trying not to sound bitter. 

“And you’ve really got no idea why the universe is messing with you?” Imayoshi asks. 

“Nope,” Nijimura says. 

Imayoshi hums thoughtfully and strokes his chin. 

“Well, I figure that there must be a reason that you got sent back to right here and right now, at least,” Imayoshi says. 

Nijimura can admit that he’s probably right. Why else send him back to middle school? Why not elementary, or into the future? 

There must be something he needs to do that can only be done right now. Something that he didn’t do right the first time around, Nijimura thinks.  
There’s lots of things in his life that Nijimura kind of wishes he could do over. 

“Yeah, but _what_?” Nijimura asks, frustrated. 

Imayoshi shrugs. “Beats me. Keep me updated, though. I’m sure this will be really fun to watch,” 

Nijimura goes home that night and sits in front of his computer. It doesn’t have the existential answers he wants but it does have information about an experimental new treatment happening in America for his father’s sickness and a special trial that’s looking for volunteer patients. He figures he might as well help get his father into treatment early while he tries to figure out why he’s in the past. He prints the information out and puts it on his father’s desk, where the kids won’t accidentally come across it. 

Nijimura’s life in middle school had been difficult. He’d had rough patches, gotten into fights, and hung out with some unsavory people. But he was past that point in his life now, so it wasn’t like the universe was telling him to get his act together. 

Really, Nijimura’s life at this point had been all basketball. He’d buried his head in it when his dad kept getting sicker and sicker, until Nijimura couldn’t deny it anymore and had given up his captaincy to Akashi. 

Though from what he’d heard afterward, during long Skype calls with Tatsuya, things had gone kind of off the rails when he’d left even according to Murasakibara.  
Nijimura groaned in realization. 

Of course it was those damn brats that _pulled him two years into the past_. What else could it have possibly been? They were freaks of nature already, what was a little bending of the time-space continuum? 

Well, at least Nijimura had a goal in mind now. 

Save the Generation of Miracles from their own damn selves. 

“Yeah, it’s not like that’s asking for much or anything,” Nijimura said to himself.

**Author's Note:**

> The picture of Nijimura and Himuro referenced is shamelessly based off this wonderful fanart by mokoiiiiiii because I love it: http://mokoiiiiiii.tumblr.com/post/85463672085


End file.
